ciating with "armed barbarians." No
massacre of vanquished foe stains the banners of those who followed you,
giving quarter but receiving none. It was your teaching that served as a
complete restraint against retaliation, though statesmen hinted that it
would be just. Your training developed patriotism and courage, but not
revenge. Ungrateful as Republics are said to be, ours has aimed to
recognize merit and reward it, and those who at first hailed you with
contumely, are now glad to greet you as heroes and saviors of a common
country.

No true soldier desires to forget the price of his country's liberty, or
that of his own; it is the recollection of the terrible bloody
onset--the audacious charge--the enemy's repulse, which sweetens
victory. And surely no soldiers can appreciate the final triumph with a
keener sense of gladness than those who fought against such odds as did
the Black Phalanx. Beating down prejudice and upholding the national
cause at the same time, they have inscribed upon their banners every
important battle from April, 1863, to April, 1865.

If what I have written here shall call to your minds, and present justly
to the patriotic public, the indescribable hardships which you endured
on the march, in the bivouac, and in the seething flames of the battle's
front, my task will have served its purpose. In the name of and as a
token of the gratitude of a freed race, this book is dedicated to you.

JOSEPH T. WILSON.

_Navy Hill, Richmond, Va._

PREFACE.

It was a dark, stormy night in the winter of 1882, when less than a
hundred men, all of whom had served their country in crushing the great
Rebellion of 1861-'65, gathered around a camp-fire. The white and the
colored American were there; so were the German, Frenchman, and
Irishman,--all American citizens,--all veterans of the last war. The
empty sleeve, the absent leg, the sabred face, the bullet-scarred body
of the many, told the story of the service they had seen. It was the
annual Encampment of the Department of Virginia, Grand Army of the
Republic, and the comrades of Farragut Post had tastefully arranged
their quarters for the occasion.

At midnight a sumptuous soldiers fare--baked beans, hot coffee and hard
tack--was spread before the veterans, who ate and drank heartily as in
the days when resting from the pursuit of the enemy. In the morning
hour, when weary from the joy of song and toast, it was p